Setting psalm tones in English (fianls for tone II and VIII)
  • Ralph BednarzRalph Bednarz
    Posts: 489
    THIS used to be easy!
    Setting the following texts to the final cadence of tone II and VIII presents problems for me as I am trying to relate the musical accent on "re" for tone II or la for tone VIII to an accented syllable of the text. The text is "NAME of the LORD." An oxytone preceed by two unaccented sylables. The simplest solution seems to be synerisis on the final syllable of tone II. And for tone VIII i would syneresis on "name"- (ti-do )and an epenthesis on "of the" placing them both on "la" and "Lord" acquires an accent.

    Also : Do you think the melodic movement of the preparatory notes relate to the penultimate or even ante- penultimate accent in English. I have seen many texts where the pointed accent markings only indicated movement of the (accented) preparatory notes and the traditional location of the accent is often left to (unmarked) unaccented syllables.
    Do the textual accents in English gravitate to the preparatory notes at the expense of the Tone's original structure? They sometime seem like predatory notes.

    HERE: "NAME of the LORD" for tone II : I would employ syneresis on LORD (do-re), preparatory note would be "the"(mi). OR syneresis on "NAME" (fa -mI); epenthesis on "of the," pitched on (do), and "LORD"(re).
    But typically I hear "OF" as the initial preparatory note (mi) and ; "THE" the falls on "re" the traditional accented pitch. This seems to destroy the momentum that created by both the psalm tone and the text.
    I thought just needed a pencil, a misslette and a little longer first reading to point the responsorial psalm. Now I have found that this can be very, very beautiful- from the printed fonts all the way to the final oxytone.

    Here are other FINAL lines which I now struggle with for tones II and VIII, which I had thought were the easiest to set until I found this site!
    give the LORD GLOry an PRAISE.
    aDORE the LORD in HOly atTIRE.
    and in his TEMple ALL SAY GLORY.
    The voice of the LORD is maJEStin
  • Dan F.Dan F.
    Posts: 205
    You should see this discussion.
  • Aristotle EsguerraAristotle Esguerra
    Posts: 1,185
    The treatment you describe for "Name of the LORD" is what I use, since (1) the word "name" can handle synersis (I look at it almost as two syllables na-m to which one could apply a liquescent neume), and (2) doing so "transforms" the following "of" into an accented syllable.

    The first two examples that you give don't offer that possibility, though, so I don't fight the oxytone:

    "Give the LORD glory and praise:"
    II: fa___ fa mi do re.
    VIII: do___ ti do la sol.

    "Adore the LORD in holy attire:"
    II: fa___ fa mi do re.
    VIII: do___ ti do la sol.

    The next two examples I simply use the final accent as my "compass point":

    "and in his temple all say glory:"
    II: fa___ fa mi do re.
    VIII: do___ ti do la sol.

    "The voice of the LORD is majestic."
    II: fa___ fa mi do re.
    VIII: do___ ti do la sol.

    Cf. Bruce Ford, "Setting English to Gregorian Psalm Tones". He also provides an example of pointing psalms to this method, though I'm not sure how adaptable it is to the pencil-on-missalette technique (only because I haven't tried it).
  • Steve CollinsSteve Collins
    Posts: 1,021
    While I don't regularly have need of using these techniques, but I do occasionally point Gospel verses for myself. These principles, even though I did not know their names, come somewhat naturally to me. I believe it is because I grew up with the Psalm tones, and they seem natural to me.

    Now, where did I get that from? The Rev. Carlo Rossini Psalm Tone Propers! No, they're not the most beautiful or authentic. But they sure are a great tool!

    But that brings another couple of thoughts:

    1 If we had not prohibited the use of Gregorian chant with vernacular, keeping it reserved for Latin, more of us would know how to do this.

    2 Moreover, if we had wanted to marry the Psalm tones to the vernacular (English in our case), then ICEL would have had more than sufficient reason to consider the rhythm of their texts, and we would not have drifted so far into simplistic colloquialistic liturgical texts!
  • Ralph BednarzRalph Bednarz
    Posts: 489
    Aristotle: Those examples were helpful and have given me some insights. I think the textual accents could be honored even more judiciously what is usually heard. In the above examples there is not a regular iambic meter - and I am just trying to honor the strategic accents while avoiding the situation where an important word's accentual position is intercepted by a pronoun or an article. Not that your examples are not justified.
    Prepositional phases of English generate their own dynamic cadence and falling pitch inflection which allows them to
    merge into those preparatory notes of the finals quite well; but they often unravel at the end of the phrase - again leaving articles or pronouns occupying that strategic accent's position. Maybe I should not be so condescending to those articles, prepositions, and pronouns. To me a preposition or a pronoun is like an orphaned inflectional ending .
    Bruce Ford is Provided excellent solutions and I hope he presents more information.
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